Okay, yesterday I finally succumbed and started my own blog. There's not much on it yet, but I'm sure there will be. I'm entering 'grumpy old man' territory and seem to find something to rant and rave about every day!

'Check elastic before jumping' my SF short is appearing in the 22 June issue of Nature. Funny, the envelope they sent the magazine in was addressed to Dr. Neal Asher. I guess that's a precaution they take with all their contributors.

Macmillan have agreed a new deal with Bastei Lubbe in Germany for the next two books, Polity Agent and Hilldiggers. Great stuff - the German publisher is always the first to buy rights to my books, quite often without even reading them.

Apparently both Brass Man and Sable Keech have been their top SF Titles for their months of publication and have been given full-page trade ads, rather than the usual half pages.

There’s to be a bit of a do at Heffers Bookshop in the Grafton Centre, Cambridge, on 2nd November starting at 6.30pm. Numerous writers, including me, will be there to sign books and generally wander around and chat. Here’s the attendance list thus far:

Heffers 2nd Science Fiction & Fantasy Evening will be on Thursday 2nd November from 6.30pm. Tickets are £2.00 each, this is redeemable against a purchase made on the night. Under 15s go free, but still require an entry ticket.

For further information or to purchase tickets, please contact Heffers Bookshop, The Grafton Centre, Cambridge or telephone 01223 568573 or email sarah.whyley@heffers.co.uk.
We have a fantastic line-up again this year and the evening will be free from speeches and readings, just a chance to meet some fantastic authors, get books signed and mingle.

Well, I’m not entirely sure how this sounds … that is, I don’t want to listen to it myself because I know I was talking too fast, I’d had a beer or two, and listening to myself always makes me cringe, but here’s the Dragon Page interview: http://www.dragonpage.com/2007/02/05/cover-to-cover-249/

Well, being the publicity tart that I am, I've now started doing a few bits with a Myspace account I got about two years ago. The profile URL is: http://www.myspace.com/nealasher and the blog Url is: http://blog.myspace.com/nealasher I'm not entirely sure where I'm going to go with this that'll make it any different from what I've already got (I've already copied blog posts across). Anyway, it gives me another excuse not to get on with writing...

Hey, come and be my friend - I'll look a bit sad if there's only one or two listed.

There we go, at 5.30 tonight I put ‘ENDS’ below what I’d been labouring over all day, then, despite the fact that I haven’t been particularly abstemious this week, I wandered up the shop and bought a couple of bottles of wine to celebrate. The first draft of Line War is finished and it weighs in at just over 140,000 words. After I’ve finished editing, swapping bits around, extending other bits, cutting bits and generally hacking it into shape the book will almost certainly be larger. It’ll be about the size of either Brass Man or The Skinner. It’s a cause to celebrate because, even though further work lies ahead, the thing itself is done.